Where Islam spreads, freedom dies

Asturias was the part of Spain that served as a redoubt where the Spaniards held out against the Mohammedan invaders who came to dominate the rest of the peninsula. Now, centuries later, it finally yields.

Schoolchildren in the northern Spanish region of Asturias will no longer be able to call Christmas by its name now that a new law passed by the local education ministry prohibits the use of “religious” terms in the classroom when referring to the December and spring holidays.

Teachers and pupils in Asturias classrooms will now have to refer to Christmas as “winter holidays” and Easter as “second term holidays”.

The region’s socialist-led government has decided to introduce the new terminology in a bid to restrict religious references in the next school year.

Local religious teachers and institutions like the Catholic Confederation of Fathers (CONCAPA) have shrugged off the new law, branding it as a “stupidity” but also an “attack”.

“This could be a huge reason for ridicule for Asturian society,” conservative association Hazte Oír (Make Yourself Heard) told the national newspaper.

But Spain’s Workers’ Commissions CC00 and Asturias Teachers’ Association SUATEA have backed the move, suggesting that the school calendar should take every student’s religious beliefs, whatever they might be, into account.